I found this after a little search I did after repeatedly reading comments on various fora suggesting that
it's bigger than you think versus
you must have at least [enter huge value here] inches of aperture. From the article it appears the only
must-haves for IC434 if not the horse itself are a dark sky with excellent transparency and a certain exit pupil size. And maybe an appropriate filter. Magnification, and therefore aperture, seems to get 4th priority at best
. Can't wait to put that to the test...